Mrs. ROSE said: In reference to this last election, though it was not my good fortune to be here during the time of that great excitement, being then on the continent of Europe; yet, even at that great distance, the fire of freedom that was kindled here spread itself across the Atlantic. The liberal, intelligent, and reformatory portion of the people of Europe, as well as in England, have most warmly, most heartily sympathized with us in the last struggle of freedom against slavery. It is a most glorious epoch. I will not enter into a political or anti-slavery lecture, but simply state this fact--the time has come when the political parties are entirely annihilated. They have ceased to exist. There is no longer Whig and no longer Democrat--there is Freedom or Slavery. We have here an equally great purpose to achieve. This, too, is not woman"s rights or man"s rights, but it is human rights. It is based on precisely the same fundamental truths with the other question. In the last election the general feeling prevailed that woman ought to take more interest in political affairs, and with the n.o.ble work she did during the campaign, it seems to me most extraordinary that the men who have worked thus n.o.bly for the freedom of one cla.s.s, should yet refuse freedom to the other cla.s.s.
PHILLIP D. MOORE rose in the body of the building and said: During this last Presidential canva.s.s I heard more than once the oldest member of Congress declare that Freedom was based upon the law of G.o.d, which was declared in our Bill of Rights--our Declaration of Independence--that it was the inalienable right of all mankind to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness.
He placed this last Presidential struggle upon that right higher than all human law; and upon that it seems this contest in behalf of human rights is based. I think that we should adopt these resolutions, and also appeal to the legislative bodies, where, I believe, there are men who will hear and heed the voice of justice.
Rev. T. W. HIGGINSON took the floor, and expressed his hope that they would have more speaking from the floor and less from the platform. As a Republican voter, he would take his stand in support of these resolutions; and he would declare that it was true that the close of the Presidential election was the time for a woman"s Convention to be held. It was true that the Republican party was pledged, if it had any manliness in it, to support the cause of women, to whom it had applied to support its cause every day; and it was positively true that, if there were such a thing in the land as a Democratic party, that party was the party of the women also. As a further ill.u.s.tration of the idea expressed by the gentleman who had preceded him, he would state the fact that, when he was invited to Vermont to address the Legislature in favor of the appropriation of $20,000 for Kansas,[150] the meeting was postponed, on the ground that the shortness of the notice would not allow time for procuring the attendance of the women of the village to fill the galleries, and by their sympathy to influence the determination of the members of the Legislature who might be present. Accordingly they waited a little longer, gave sufficient notice, got the gallery full of ladies, and ultimately got the $20,000 appropriation, too. But always when the women had given their sympathy and began to demand some in return, it was found out that they were very "dependent"
creatures, and that, if they persisted in it, they would forfeit the "protection" of the men; and this in the face of the fact, that when politicians wanted votes and clergymen wanted money, their invariable practice was to appeal to the women!
The last time he had considered woman"s rights he was in a place where man"s rights needed to be defended--it was in Kansas. No man could go to Kansas and see what woman had done there, and come back and see the little men who squeak and shout on platforms in behalf of Kansas, and then turn to deride and despise women, without a feeling of disgust. He would like to place some of these parlor orators and dainty platform speakers where the women of Kansas had stood, and suffered, and acted. He saw, while in Kansas, a New York woman[151]--whose story they might remember in the newspapers--how she hospitably prepared, in one day, three dinners for the marauders who were hovering around her house, and in their starvation became respectful at last, and asked her for the hospitality they did not then quite dare to enforce; and how they ate her dinner and abused her husband, until the good woman could stand it no longer, and at last opened her lips and gave them a piece of her mind. He saw that woman.
She had lived for weeks together in the second story of a log hut, with the windows of the lower story boarded up, so that the inmates had to climb in by a ladder. She was surrounded by pro-slavery camps; and while her husband was in the army, she was left alone. The house had been visited again and again, and plundered. The wretches would come at night, discharge their rifles, and howl like demons. Her little girl, a nervous child, had sickened and died from sheer fright. But still, after the death of that child, the mother lived on, and still gave hospitality to free-soil men, and still defended the property of her husband by her presence. At last the marauders burned her house over her head, and she retreated for a time. The speaker saw her when she was on her way back to that homestead, to rebuild the house which she had seen once reduced to ashes by the enemy; and she said that if her husband was killed there in Kansas, she should preempt that claim, and defend the property for her children.
He saw another woman, a girl of twenty. He visited a mill which had been burnt by Missourians, where piles of sawdust were still in flames before his eyes, and there he met her; and when he asked to whom that house belonged, she said to her father. And when he inquired about her adventures in connection with that burning house, this was the story. Twenty-eight hundred Missourians were encamped around that house the morning after they had burned it. The girl had fled with her mother a mile off, but had come back to see if she could save any of the property.
She walked into the midst of the crowd, and found a man she had previously known seated upon her favorite horse. Said she, "That is my horse; get off." He laughed at her. She repeated her demand. He loaded her with curses and insults. She turned to the bystanders--the herd of ruffians who had burned her father"s house--and said: "This is my horse; make that man get off." Those fellows obeyed her; they shrank before that heroic girl, and made their companion dismount. She mounted the horse and rode off.
When she had gone about half a mile, she heard a trampling of horses" hoofs behind her. The thief, mounted on a fleeter horse, was riding after her. He overtook her, and reining his horse in front of her, he seized hers by the bridle, and commanded her to let go. She held on. Said he, "Let go, or it will be the worse for you." She still held on. He took out his bowie-knife, and drew it across her hand, so that she could feel the sharpness of the edge. Said he, "If you don"t let go, I will cut your hand off." Said she, "Cut if you dare." He cut the rope close to her hand, and took the bridle from her. It was useless to resist any longer, so she slipped off and walked away. But it was not ten minutes before she again heard trampling behind, and as she looked around, she saw two companions of this miscreant--two men less utterly villainous than he--bringing back her horse. Moved by her heroism, they had compelled him again to give up the horse, had brought it back to her, and she owns it now.
That was what great emergencies made out of woman. That girl had splendid physical proportions, and though some accident had deprived her of her left arm, she had a right arm, however, which was worth a good many. She had one arm, and the editor of _The New York Times_, he supposed, had two. He was not much accustomed to seeking defence of anybody, but he must say that, if he ever did get into difficulty as a Woman"s Rights man, and had to choose between the protection of the one arm of that girl in Kansas, and the two of the New York editor, he thought his first choice would not be the Lieutenant-Governor. Seeing the heroism of the women of Kansas, he told the men of Lawrence, that when the time came for them to a.s.sert their rights, he hoped they would not imitate the border ruffians of the Eastern States, who a.s.serted rights for man, and denied them to woman.
Mr. Higginson then reported the following resolution from the Business Committee:
_Resolved_, That the warm sympathies of this Convention are respectfully offered to those n.o.ble women in England, who are struggling against wrongs even greater than those of American women, but the same in kind; and we trust that they will follow on their demands in logical consistency, until they comprise the full claim for the equality of the s.e.xes before the law.
This resolution referred, as some of them knew, to the recent action of some of the n.o.blest women in England, in behalf of juster rights of property and a larger construction of human rights than had hitherto prevailed there. The list included a few of the very n.o.blest of the women who had helped to make England"s name glorious by their deeds in literature and in art. It included Mrs. Norton, to whom Wendell Phillips had referred, as a living proof of the intellectual greatness of woman; she had a husband who, after blasting her life by an infamous charge against her, which he confessed to his counsel he did not believe, now lived on the earnings of the brains of his wife. It included, also, Mrs. Somerville, a woman who had forever vindicated the scientific genius of her s.e.x, by labors that caused the wonder and admiration of scientific men; a woman of whom it is said, that she is in all respects true to her s.e.x, because while studying the motions of the heavenly bodies, she does not forget the motion of the tea-cups around her own table, and is as exquisite a housekeeper, as she is wise and accomplished as a student. It included also Harriet Martineau, that woman who, perhaps more than any other person in this age, had contributed to place the last half century in Europe in a clear light, by her admirable History, and shown in her treatise on Political Economy, a grasp and clearness which few men attain.
It included also the name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that woman of rarest genius, of whom her husband, himself the greatest of England"s living poets, had said that his wife"s heart, which few knew, was greater than her intellect, which everybody knew; a woman whose inspiration had drawn from that husband, in the closing poem of his latest volume, the very highest strain which modern English poetry had struck, and the n.o.blest utterance of emotion that ever man produced toward woman, in the speaker"s judgment, since the world began. It also included Mary Howitt, whose beautiful union with her husband is a proof of what true marriage will be, when man and woman are equals, and whose genius had brought forth the wonderful powers of another woman whom we may fearlessly claim as a co-laborer, Frederica Bremer. These were the women of England to whom the resolution referred; women who had taken the first step in that movement, of which the full enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman will be the last.
He could not quite accept the opinion by Mrs. Jones in her admirable essay in regard to the superior education of the women of England. The women of England, as he took it, did not equal the women of America in their average education, although they did surpa.s.s them in that physical vigor of const.i.tution which, in the end, gave greater power of action and thought. Whilst the English woman was, by the necessity of the case, taught more of the modern languages, she was not so commonly taught either the ancient languages or the mathematics, and had not, therefore, the same amount of mental training. In England, too, this Woman"s Rights movement was met by more serious obstacles. It had to encounter all the thunders of _The Thunderer_--all the terrors of _The Times_--whilst here it had to undergo the very diluted thunders of _The Times the Little_. A recent traveler has remarked that he could distinguish the Ma.s.sachusetts women from the women of any other State--not because they spoke through their nose, or sung psalms, but because they had "views." Every woman had her "views" upon every subject. It was true that the English women had superb frames, grand muscles, fine energies, that they spoke two or three languages, but then they usually didn"t have any "views"; and he thanked G.o.d that he lived in a State where women had them.
He had spoken for woman and to woman, because he was a man. He did not dare, as a Republican voter, to throw his vote with one hand, without doing something for Woman"s Rights with the other.
Men and women were one before G.o.d, and this union can not be perfect until their equality be recognized. So long as woman is cut off from education, man is deprived of his just education. So long as woman is crushed into a slave, so long will man be narrowed into a despot. Without this movement, the political conventions of the present day would only prove to posterity that the nation was half civilized; but now future historians will record that in 1856, New York had not only her caucuses and her ballot-boxes, but her Woman"s Rights Convention also.
Mrs. Rose wished to remark, in reference to the resolution offered by Mr. Higginson, that English women, to her knowledge, were very active in forwarding the Woman"s Rights movement throughout Great Britain. And not only English women, but young and n.o.ble English girls--girls, who were too timid to take part publicly in the movement, but who were untiring and indefatigable in making converts and enlisting aid. There was Miss Smith, Miss Fox, the daughter of the celebrated W. J. Fox, the eloquent lecturer and member of Parliament for Oldham, Miss Parkes, and others. They had devoted themselves to the great work, which was more difficult in that country than this. They had no declaration of independence to appeal to, declaring that all men were created equal, and endowed with the incalculable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They had no such standard to appeal to there, because men there were not recognized as free. Banking interests, manufacturing interests, land monopolies, and monopolies of every other kind were represented in England, but not men. The principle of universal suffrage had not yet obtained in England, and hence the greater difficulties that woman had to encounter there.
Another obstacle was the division of the people into cla.s.ses and castes. No movement could make headway in England unless it was commenced among what are termed the higher cla.s.ses. Every pet.i.tion to Parliament must first have some names that have a t.i.tle attached to them before it can obtain other signatures.
The thinking portion of the middle cla.s.ses were kept silent to a great extent, because of their utter inability to do anything unless it was taken up and supported by the higher cla.s.ses. But this state of things would not continue long; there was "a good time coming" there as well as here. Signatures by thousands had been obtained to the Woman"s Pet.i.tion, and she presumed by the time it was presented to Parliament it would contain tens of thousands of names.
Mrs. ROSE then offered the following resolution from the Committee:
_Resolved_, That we also present our a.s.surances of respect and sympathy to the supporters of the cause of women in Paris, the worthy successors of Pauline Roland and Jeanne Deroine, who, in the face of imperial despotism, dare to tell the truth.
In commenting on this resolution, Mrs. Rose remarked that if the difficulties surrounding English women who advocated an amelioration of woman"s condition were great, how much greater were those which surrounded the French women, owing to the blight of despotism in that country. They could write their thoughts, but their writings could not be published in France. They had to send them to the one State in Italy which was not crushed by dark and bitter despotism. That bright spot is Sardinia. The works of the n.o.ble French women had to be sent to Turin, printed there, and sent back to Paris for private, secret distribution. And when these women met in consultation, they had to watch the doors and windows, to see that all was secure. She knew many of them, but dared not mention their names, for fear they might be borne across the Atlantic, and lead to their oppression and proscription. The n.o.blest thoughts that had ever been uttered in France were by women, not only before the Revolution, but down to the present day. Madame Roland was imprisoned for uttering the truth, in consequence of which imprisonment she lost her arm.
Jeanne Deroine was exiled, and now resides in London, where she supports herself, two daughters and son. She was teaching them herself, because she had no means to pay for their education. She filled their minds with n.o.ble thoughts and feelings, even to the very sacrifice of themselves for the benefit of the race, and more especially for the elevation of woman, without which she feels convinced that the elevation of man can never be accomplished.
But while the names of a few such n.o.ble women were made public, hundreds, nay, thousands, who had done as much, and even more than these, were in obscurity. They were constantly watching to find what was done in America. And there was one thing which characterized these French women, and that was, the entire absence of jealousy and envy of the talents and virtues of others. Wherever they see a man or woman of intellect or virtue, they recognize them as a brother or sister; and they never ask from whom a great thought or a virtuous action comes, but, is it good, is it n.o.ble? It seemed to her that the character of the French women was the very essence of human n.o.bility. They are ready to welcome, with heart and hand, every reformer, without stopping to inquire whether he is English, American, German, or Turk. But poor France was oppressed as she never was before. The usurper that now disgraces the throne, as well as the name he bears, does not allow the free utterance of a single free thought. Men and women are taken up privately and imprisoned, and no newspaper dares to publish any account of it.
When Mrs. Rose had concluded, a young gentleman in the rear of the hall rose from his seat, and desired to make a few remarks. We subsequently understood he was from Virginia, and that his name was Leftwich, a theological student. He asked whether the claims of woman, which had been stated and advocated in the Convention, were founded on Nature or Revelation? He wished Mr. Higginson would enlighten him and several of his friends on that subject.
Rev. Mr. HIGGINSON said that he was very glad that it was not a place for theological discussion. He was requested to answer the query whether the claims of woman, as stated in this Convention, were founded in Nature or Revelation. To define either what Nature or Revelation was, would involve metaphysical argument and abstract considerations that would take up the entire day. The basis of the movement was not due to this or that creed. Every Woman"s Rights man or woman does his or her own thinking. He (the speaker) did his own. Included in the movement were men and women of all sects. There was Wendell Phillips, who thought himself a strict Calvinist; there were on the other hand professed atheists among them, and there were, he believed, Roman Catholics, so that it would be, in the highest degree, presumptuous for any one man to speak on that peculiar topic. Antoinette L. Brown had formed her idea of Woman"s Rights from the Bible, and some of her friends thought that she was wasting her time in writing a treatise on Woman"s Rights, deduced from Scripture. She was an orthodox Congregational minister, ordained in a Methodist meeting-house, while a Baptist minister preached the ordination sermon. There were some of the Woman"s Rights friends who believed that we could get support from the Bible, and some who believed we could not, and who did not care whether we can or not. There were, also, those who simply believed that G.o.d made man and woman, and knew what He was about when He made them--giving them rights founded on the eternal laws of nature.
It was upon these laws of nature that he (Mr. H.) founded his Woman"s Rights doctrines. If there was any book or teacher in the world which contradicted them, he was sorry for that book and for that teacher. Was the gentleman answered?
THE GENTLEMAN FROM VIRGINIA rose, in his place, in the rear of the building, and replied that he was not answered. Although earnestly invited to come upon the platform and address the audience, he declined to do so. His remarks, in consequence, were inaudible to about one-half the audience. He said it seemed to him that there was an inconsistency and an antagonism between theology and Mr. Higginson"s views, as expressed by himself. The gentleman had contradicted himself. He refused to treat the question on the ground of revelation, and then declared that the claim of Woman"s Rights was founded on the fundamental laws of G.o.d and nature. Here he took issue with Mr. H. The test of the naturalness of a claim was its universality. The principles upon which it was based must be found wherever man was found, and must have existed through all time and under every condition of life.
What was found everywhere under all circ.u.mstances was natural.
This Woman"s Rights claim was not found everywhere even in this country, let alone others. He knew many enlightened and refined districts which had never heard the principles of this society, much less felt them. They were not popular anywhere in the age in which they were inaugurated. Therefore they were not founded in nature, and the claim of naturalism must fall to the ground. The taste for the beautiful, and the love of right, were innate faculties of the mind, because they existed everywhere; not so with the recognition of the claim of Woman"s Rights. Again, the claim was not based on revelation, which he would prove in this way: Revelation is never inconsistent with itself. The claim for woman of the right to vote, inasmuch as she would of necessity vote as she pleased, and therefore sometimes contrary to her husband, involved a disobedience of her husband, which was directly antagonistic to the injunction of the Scriptures requiring wives to obey their husbands.
AN ELDERLY QUAKER LADY in the body of the audience rose, and told the gentleman from the Old Dominion that if he wished to do any good he must come on the platform where he could be heard. The gentleman declined.
LUCY STONE said that men had rights as well as women, and she would not insist on the gentleman coming to the platform if he chose to remain where he was, but it would be more convenient if he would come.
THE GENTLEMAN FROM VIRGINIA still declined, and proceeded to quote Scripture against the Woman"s Rights movement.
THE QUAKER LADY again started up, and told him he had got hold of the letter of the Bible, but not the spirit.
LUCY STONE desired that each speaker would take his or her turn, "in due order, so that all might be edified."
THE GENTLEMAN FROM VIRGINIA proceeded. Referring to a remark of Mr. Phillips on the preceding evening, in connection with a quotation from Tacitus, "that this movement was Paul against the Anglo-Saxon blood," he stood by the apostle to the Gentiles, and Mr. Phillips might stand by the corrupted Saxon blood.
A GENTLEMAN rose and requested him to go upon the platform, as half the audience were breaking their necks by trying to listen to him. Still the gentleman declined.
THE VIRGINIAN argued that woman was not fitted for the pulpit, the rostrum, or the law court, because her voice was not powerful enough. G.o.d gave her a mild, sweet voice, fitted for the parlor and the chamber, for the places for which He had designed her.
G.o.d has not given her a const.i.tution to sustain fatigue, to endure as man endures, to brave the dangers which man can brave.
She was too frail, too slender--too delicate a flower for rough blasts and tempests. In her whole physical organization there was proof that she was not capable of what man was capable. Hers was a more beautiful mission than man"s--a pure atmosphere was hers to breathe. Surrounded by all gentle influences, let her be content with the holy and beautiful position a.s.signed to her by her Maker. He did not rise to make a speech. He was urged into it by the desultory, erratic, shallow, superficial reasonings of the gentleman who in one breath invited them to free discussion, and in the next defamed and scandalized the editor of _The Times_, because he took the liberty to discuss this question freely in his paper.
Mr. HIGGINSON came forward promptly to reply. He thanked the gentleman for his speech. Such speeches were just what the Convention wanted. He was glad to hear from the applause which followed the gentleman"s remarks, that there was a large number of persons present who were opposed to the views of the Convention. It was of little use talking to friends who already agreed with you, but it was always of advantage to talk to opponents, whom you might hope to convert. He was glad that those who differed with them were there, because it showed that the question was one of interest, and was beginning to excite those who probably had bestowed but little thought on it before. He did not think the gentleman could have meant what he said when he accused him of slander. He did not mean to slander anybody. And he did not think he quite meant what he said about his erratic and shallow reasonings. He would appeal to all if he had not treated the gentleman with courtesy. He thought he had answered the gentleman"s inquiry, when in reply to the question whether he founded this claim on nature or on revelation, he said that he personally founded it on nature. If there was in the compa.s.s of the English language any simpler way of answering the question than that he did not know it. The gentleman, from the scope of his remarks, evinced a considerable love for metaphysical theology. His reasoning appeared to be a little dim; perhaps it was for want of comprehension on his part. He liked to plant himself on the fundamental principles of human nature, and work out his opinions from them.
In reply to the gentleman"s reasoning about the universality of a thing being a test of its naturalness, he could say that there were a good many races who did not know that two and two make four. According to the gentleman"s idea of natural laws, therefore, it was not natural that two and two should make four.
But it had always been a question among metaphysicians, which was really the most natural condition for man--the savage or the civilized state? His own opinion was that the state of highest cultivation was the most natural state of man. He tried to develop his own nature in that way, and one of the consequences of that development was the conviction that two and two made four; while another was the conviction that his wife had as much right to determine her sphere in life for herself as he had for himself. And having come to that conviction, he should endeavor to carry it out, and he hoped by the time the young gentleman came to have a wife, he would be converted to that principle.
In reference to his attack on the editor of _The Daily Times_ for the article on the Woman"s Convention, which had appeared in the edition of the previous day, he remarked that he had read that article without any particular reverence for its author. He knew the quarter from which it came. There was not a man in New York who better understood on which side his bread is b.u.t.tered than the editor of _The Daily Times_. That gentleman always wished people to understand that his journal was _The Times_, and was not _The Tribune_, and never failed to avail himself of the Woman"s Rights movement as giving him such an opportunity. Have you ever seen a little boy running along the street, and carefully dodging between two big boys? If you have, that was the editor of _The Times_ between Greeley and Bennett. _The Times_ seeks to be a journal and nothing else. I will always say of it, continued the speaker, that the _reports_ in _The Times_ are very perfect and very excellent. I do not mean any disrespect to the other reporters present when I say that the report of yesterday"s proceedings of this Convention, published in this morning"s _Times_, was fuller and far more perfect than the report of any other paper. And so it always is with the reports of _The Times_. They are as full, as its criticisms on moral subjects are empty.
LUCY STONE vacated the chair to address the meeting. She was more than glad, for the sake of the cause, that this discussion had arisen. She was glad that the question had been asked, whether this claim was based on nature or on revelation. Many were asking the same question, and it was proper that it should be answered.
If we were living in New Zealand where there is no revelation and n.o.body has ever heard of one, there would yet be an everlasting truth or falsehood on this question of woman"s rights, and the inhabitants of that island would settle it in some way, without revelation. The true test of every question is its own merits.
What is true will remain. What is false will perish like the leaves of autumn when they have served their turn.
But in regard to this question of Nature and Revelation, we found our claim on both. By Revelation I suppose the gentleman means Scripture. I find it there, "He who spake as never man spake"
held up before us all radiant with G.o.d"s own sunlight the great truth, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"; and that revelation I take as the foundation of our claim, and tell the gentleman who takes issue with us, that if he would not take the position of woman, denied right of access to our colleges, deprived of the right of property, compelled to pay taxes, to obey laws that he never had a voice in making, and be defrauded of the children of his love, then, according to the revelation which he believes in, he must not be thus unjust to me.
The gentleman says he believes in Paul. So do I. When Paul declares that there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, male nor female in Christ, I believe he meant what he said.
The gentleman says he believes in Paul more than in the Anglo-Saxon blood. I believe in both. But when Paul tells us to "submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord"s sake,"
and to "fear G.o.d and honor the king," the heavy tread of the Anglo-Saxon blood walks over the head of Paul and sweeps away from this republic the possibility of a king. And the gentleman himself, I presume, would not a.s.sent to the sway of a crowned monarch, Paul to the contrary, notwithstanding. Just as the people have outgrown the injunction of Paul in regard to a king, so have the wives his direction to submit themselves to their husbands. The gentleman intimates that wives have no right to vote against their husbands, because the Scriptures command submission, and he fears that it would cause trouble at home if they were to do so. Let me give him the reply of an old lady, gray with the years which bring experience and wisdom. She said that when men wanted to get their fellow-men to vote in the way they desire, they take especial pains to please them, they smile upon them, ask if their wives and children are well, and are exceedingly kind. They do not expect to win their vote by quarreling with them--that would be absurd. In the same way, if a man wanted his wife to vote for his candidate he will be sure to employ conciliatory means.
The golden rule settles this whole question. We claim it as ours, and whatever is found in the Bible contradictory to it, never came from G.o.d. If men quote other texts in conflict with this, it is their business, not mine, to make them harmonize. I did not quite understand the gentleman"s definition of what is natural.
But this I do know, that when G.o.d made the human soul and gave it certain capacities, He meant these capacities should be exercised. The wing of the bird indicates its right to fly; and the fin of the fish the right to swim. So in human beings, the existence of a power, presupposes the right to its use, subject to the law of benevolence. The gentleman says the voice of woman can not be heard. I am not aware that the audience finds any difficulty in hearing us from this platform. All Europe and America have listened to the voice of Madam Rachel and Jenny Lind. The capacity to speak indicates the right to do so, and the n.o.blest, highest, and best thing that any one can accomplish, is what that person ought to do, and what G.o.d holds him or her accountable for doing, nor should we be deterred by the senseless cry, "It is not our proper sphere."
As regards woman"s voting, I read a letter from a lady traveling in the British provinces, who says that by a provincial law of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, women were actually voters for members of Parliament; and still the seasons come and go, children are born, and fish flock to that sh.o.r.e. The voting there is _viva voce_. In Canada it is well known that women vote on the question of schools. A friend told me when the law was first pa.s.sed giving women who owned a certain amount of property, or who paid a given rental, a right to vote, he went trembling to the polls to see the result. The first woman who came was a large property holder in Toronto; with marked respect the crowd gave way as she advanced. She spoke her vote and walked quietly away, sheltered by her womanhood. It was all the protection she needed.
In face of all the arguments in favor of the incapacity of woman to be a.s.sociated in government, stood the fact that women had sat on thrones and governed as successfully as men. England owes more to Queen Elizabeth than to any other sovereign except Alfred the Great. We must not always be looking for precedents. New ideas are born and old ones die. Ideas that have prevailed a thousand years have been at last exploded. Every new truth has its birth-place in a manger, lives thirty years, is crucified, and then deified. Columbus argued through long years that there must be a western world. All Europe laughed at him. Five crowned heads rejected him, and it was a woman at last who sold her jewels and fitted out his ships. So, too, the first idea of applying steam to machinery was met with the world"s derision. But its triumphs are recognized now. What we need is to open our minds wide and give hospitality to every new thought, and prove its truth.
I want to say a word upon the resolutions. The present time, just after a presidential election, is most appropriate to consider woman"s demand for suffrage. The Republican party claims especially to represent the principles of freedom, and during the last campaign has been calling upon women for help. One of the leaders of that party went to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and said he wanted her help in this campaign; and before she told me what answer she made, she asked me how I would have felt if the same had been asked of me. I told her I should have felt as Samson did when the Philistines put out his eyes, and then asked that he should make merriment for them. The Republican party are a part of those who compel us to obey laws we never had a voice in making--to pay taxes without our consent; and when we ask for our political and legal rights, it laughs in our face, and only says: "Help _us_ to places of power and emolument, and _we_ will rule over you." I know there are men in the Republican party who, like our friend Mr. Higginson, take a higher stand, and are ready to recognize woman as a co-sovereign; but they are the exceptions.
There is but one party--that of Gerrit Smith--that makes the same claim for woman that it does for man. But while the Republican and Democratic parties deny our political existence, they must not expect that we shall respond to their calls for aid.
Madame de Stael said to Bonaparte, when asked why she meddled with politics: "Sire, when women have their heads cut off, it is but just they should know the reason." Whatever political influence springs into being, woman is affected by it. We have the same rights to guard that men have; we shall therefore insist upon our claims. We shall go to your meetings, and by and by we shall meet with the same success that the Roman women did, who claimed the repeal of the Appian law. War had emptied the treasury, and it was still necessary to carry it on; women were required to give up their jewels, their carriages, etc. But by and by, when the war was over, they wished to resume their old privileges. They got up a pet.i.tion for the repeal of the law; and when the senators went to their places, they found every avenue to the forum thronged by women, who said to them as they pa.s.sed, "Do us justice." And notwithstanding Cato, the Censor, was against them, affirming that men must have failed in their duty or women would not be clamorous for their rights, yet the obnoxious law was repealed.